Evangelism Options

[yummy_delight]

A good friend of mine and I recently got into a heated debate about evangelism. We're both Christians, but we have very different ideas about evangelism. When my friend started getting really involved in church a few years ago, he also became a rampant evangelist. He believes that by bringing more people into the church he is not only saving them from eternal damnation, but also doing his duty as a Christian. He has often quoted Charles Spurgeon, saying "Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter," essentially stating that you can't truly be Christian without evangelizing non believers.

I, however, don't like the idea of evangelism at all. Although I'm a devout Catholic, I dislike the idea of evangelism because I don't believe that anybody, myself included, has the right to force his or her beliefs on someone else. I think that everybody has a right to be whatever the religion they choose. Perhaps it's because I have a different idea about God than other people. I don't think that God sends honestly good people to Hell just because they don't believe in him. There are such things as Christian people who are hypocritical, paying lip service to God at church on Sundays, and still go about causing harm to other people. In my opinion, these people are less deserving of heaven than the good-hearted people whose only "fault" is that they don't believe in God. I think that my duty as a Christian is to be a good person and have a positive impact on the world, which doesn't necessarily mean that I HAVE to be an evangelist.

I'd just like to know what everyone else's opinion is on this, not merely from a Christian standpoint, but from another religion's or atheist's perspective as well. Do you approve of evangelism? Are you an evangelist? Do you think that evangelism is a necessary requirement for all good Christians?

[*I Shot JFK*]

Consider a little boy who is looking at a heater. His father warns him that it's hot. The child say, "OK. I believe it's hot." At that point, he has an intellectual belief that the heater is hot. When his dad leaves the room, he says, "I wonder if it really is hot ?" He then reaches out his hand and grabs the heater bar with his fingers. The second his flesh burns he stops believing the heater is hot. He now knows it's hot ! He has moved out of the realm of "gaith" and into the realm of "experience".

Two minutes later, a heater expert come in and says, "Son, I have a degree in the study of heat, heat exchange, and heaters. That heater is definitely not hot. I can prove it to you." That child would probably say, "Mr. Expert, I don't care how many degrees you have. I know that that heater is hot -- I touched it !! I'm not in the realm of belief, I'm in the realm of experience. The door's that way. Goodbye."

Yes... fine.

And the last time you reached out and fingered God, and he said 'hey, stop stroking my robe! and by the way i wrote the Bible!' was... when?